Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 115: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

_ A’ Stone in the Pool promised briefly to come back in the spirit and kill the basha in the same way she had met Kismet. She had meant it, which may explain the fact that she appeared to her brother, who was groom to the British vice consul at Arzila, and urged that he exact vengeance upon the basha for her death. Among various things she told him just where she was buried—which was not knowledge of the market-places. But, although Rushti, the brother, had no doubt of the truth of the revelation, grooms attached to British vice consuls do not go precipitately about the business of killing native bashas. It is not approved of—and groomships to consuls are desirable posts, bestowing substantial pay and very great honor. Wherefore Rushti, after pondering the matter, reached the conclu- sion that his sister’s death had been, after all, the obvious will of Allah, and let the matter drop. Until, one day, in telling his sidi consul of an entirely different business, he casually referred to the fact that the Kaid Bargas had choked his sister to death and had her body buried back of the palace. Thus was the West brought into the mat- ter to cause confusion. Arzila was not an important town and the British vice consul, as is so often the case, was very young. Thus he was considerably shocked at the story— Rushti did noé tell him that his own knowl- edge had been gained in a decidedly im- materialistic fashion—and pained with Rushti for his seeming “disinterestedness. Rushti passed the matter on to the lap of Allah, but the Englishman, not being a Believer, felt that inquiries should be set afoot. Being young he sympathized with native girls who get themselves choked to death—and he felt that such things were not proper in a town where His Britannic Majesty had a representative. But just as Rushti, because of his groom- ship, could not invade the palace of the basha and exact vengeance, so the vice consul could not take open steps in the affair. How- ever, he made inquiries of certain people, who made still further inquiries with the result that there was little doubt left as to the truth of Rushti’s story, or the truth of Rushti’s sister’s ghost’s story, if you will. The vice consul became very greatly inter- ested in a particular corner of the yard of the basha’s palace—but, here again, a foreign vice consul can not go digging up the back yards of bashas like a native planting wheat. 109 Being young, as I have said, the matter grew upon him—there is not much to oc- cupy one’s thoughts in Arzila—and at last he managed to work out a plan which en- abled him to get two of his servants into the palace-yard at night, and enabled them—the eunuch had been in a hurry— in the few minutes at their disposition, to uncover what was left of Fat’mah. Being satisfied, they took a silk handkerchief from about her head for purposes of identification and, thoroughly convinced that the vice consul was not a little insane, and most surprizingly unwise, returned to report. Wind of the matter very naturally reached the ears of the basha, with the result that three things happened almost simultaneously. The two servants of the vice consul, who had viewed the remains, drank tea in a certain native café one evening and the next morning were very, very dead. The basha’s eunuch removed a certain Thing from a spot in the palace- yard and put another Thing, but of a different sex, in its place. And the basha demanded loudly of the British minister at Tangier by what right the servants of the vice consul performed diggings about the premises and charged him with some sin or other involving a girl of his harem. Once a stone is dropped into the pool the riffes must continue to beat against the banks until Allah sees fit to stop them. The vice consul lost something of his head and told the consul general bluntly that the basha had choked Fat’mah to death, and buried her in the palace-yard; that his servants had seen, and had brought a hand- kerchief to prove what they had seen, and now were quite dead. The consul general summoned Rushti, who then remembered to tell that his own information had come from his sister’s ghost. The vice consul gasped, but was still convinced, and the consul general, who was a gray-haired old unbeliever, went to call on the basha, who insisted that he witness the uncovering of a certain spot in the palace-yard, and the brief viewing of the remains of what had once been, judging from his clothing, one of the basha’s soldiery. | Which did not in the least change any opinion the consul general may have had, but which—I have said he was a gray-haired old unbeliever—enabled him to speak sternly to the vice consul, and even more sternly to Rushti. The vice consul eventually came comic 2OOKS (eo) . a